2011 in review

2011 was a really fun year! 2012 is going to be even better! Here are some highlights of my year. Truthfully I had far more epicness than I can fit into a post that won’t put us both to sleep. Still, I think this will cover some fun stuff.

January was the start of the New Year. In my office we were missing some of the students who graduated and left. As a collective group we drew collages for them. Someone drew a rendition of the person and then we all put expressions, and other art that reminded us of the person.  

February reminded me that nerds like me are everywhere. I found graffiti in the women’s bathroom at a restaurant. It reads: Make Love Not Horcruxes and has the Deathly Hallows symbol. It made me happy.

Also, that month I got a little joke played that just shows how fun and awesome my daughter is. I had neglected my breakfast grits for a meeting. When I came back there was a sad face in them – compliments of Lana.

March brought us Megacon. Conventions are the only time of year I can wear THIS hair. I love this hair!

April was the family vacation. We all piled onto the Disney Dream and had an amazing cruise. It was the best ship I have ever ever been on.

The ship was so fancy that it had mirrors in the bathroom stalls!

In May Jimmy Wong (youtube sensation) spent some time tweeting to all of the members of the office! We all fangirled (and Barry fanboyed) about spending about an hour conversing with him online. So we sent him a group photo.

In June I took the kids to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. You know what that means – Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

July was Leaky Con! This traveling Harry Potter convention was in Orlando this year. I got to see my fav Wizard Wrock (Draco and the Malfoys) band play! I also got to see other awesome Wrock bands play too. I met Kristina Horner! Brian Malfoy! Hank Green! Jason Munday! Alex Carpenter! Danced 10 feet away from where Evanna Lynch was dancing! Oh, and Luke Conard offered to take his shirt off for me. I only said no because I needed another favor from him. XP But in general, just so many awesome things!!!!!  Bumped into old friends like Moody (aka Andrew) and made new friends like Lucius (aka Perseus).

Scar photobombed this intimate moment with me and Luke.

But the super awesome part was that I got to experience all of this with my bestie! Scar (Scarlett – aka Louanne) and her hubby Marcos were there too! I stayed in their hotel which was super duper cool. I hung with them the whole time I was there. I LOVE these people.

(note: I cannot find my pics but a summer highlight was seeing old friends from highschool! Hanging with Lora and Sarah was just like old times!)

In August my daughter turned 21. I asked her where she wanted to go celebrate. She chose Disney World. So we went! We had a lot of fun at the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. It was just so much fun. And we stayed in the Pirate rooms on Disney property. It was just freakin awesome.

THEN we got another highlight! Finally after all these years I got to meet Miri (aka Ruzena)!!   She brought her new hubby and Jeremy and I bonded over Final Fantasy. It was a fun dinner with them.

Dragoncon is always in September. Labor Day weekend is one of my fav weekends of the year because of that. This year we brought the kids! They costumed as Brock, Ash, and Misty.

Myself, Kris, Lana, and Anna all picked someone from Final Fantasy. I said in 97 I wanted to dress like Aeris someday – and I finally did!

And let’s not forget I got to meet the legendary Wil Wheaton!

In October the Anime Club hosted the Fall Game Night along with the Library staff (who are always supportive and awesome in this twice a year event). We decorated for Halloween and even had a costume contest. Such fun. It was like a mini-convention!

November showed me some real camaraderie. One of my Anime kids was in a wreck on campus. As each of the Anime Club members drove by they stopped to wait with her until the whole scene was cleared up. Since we were all starving by then we headed to Cazbors for food. It was freezing that night. We all brought out extra hoodies for those friends who had none. In the end we not only supported Sparks, we supported each other. I. Love. These. Kids.

Johnny is missing because he was taking the photo.

Also in November we started working on the annual college Christmas Float.

December we got to show the float off! We were pretty proud of it. We had more prop trouble than I could explain, but in the end it all came together and it was really pretty. Also, the parade was fun as always.

Christmas! ‘Nuff said.  

Dragon*con is almost here! (and Uni and Pottermore)

I think my nasty cold will be gone by then. I have been doped up on cold meds all week. And I have taken more vitamins than I can count! Yesterday I had given up hope of being better but today I seem a lot better. Or course last week I was almost well wehn cold 2.0 slammed me. SO hopefully this time it is for real. I want to be well!

This year I wil be debuting my Aeris costume. She is from Final Fantasy VII. My sister will be Yuna from FF X. Anna will be Lightening from FF XIII. Lana will be a mystery FF person - she won't tell us. We have to wait.

I had bought new Narcissa clothing but they didn't work out. The shirt is BEAUTIFUL but it is sooooooooooo hot. I was sweating in the movie theater just sitting there. Imagine if I try to have fun at the Yule Ball! So I will be back in my traditional Cissy clothes. It's okay. They aren't bad or anything, I just wanted an upgrade is all.

My son is coming this year. He will be Brock from Pokemon. I am excited for him.

I guess that is it for now. I have so much homework today - it's the last day of the semester. Next week I start my 15 credit semester. Why do I torture myself this way?!?! Because I love it. I do.

Also, my Pottermore email hasn't come to let me in/in. Most of us Beta testers aren't in yet. They are letting us in really slowly. I'm still glad to be a Beta. I know my time will come soon enough. 

Reflections on Harry Potter as DH.2 is set to debut..

Avid readers are usually the first to discover wonderful little known treasures and then have full bragging rights of “I told you to read that 2 years ago.” when the book blows up into a monumental success. I never got to have those bragging rights with Harry Potter. I was, in fact, extremely late to the party.

Of course I knew about Harry Potter. The first time I heard of it was when Sting arrived on the red carpet with his children and said they couldn’t wait to see Philosophers Stone because they had been reading the books as a family. Hm, a book Sting reads with his kids? Sounds interesting. I put it on my “to read” list.

But I didn’t get around to it straight away. In fact, I didn’t get around to it until the release of the final book. Shocking. I know.

I would read about my friends attending release parties. I am a fan of such parties so I fully applauded their dedication. Still, I didn’t have time to read all these books. I would “get to it later.”

Then something happened almost on accident. My daughter sent me a Sorting Hat quiz. I had a vague idea of what the Sorting Hat was, since Harry Potter mania was everywhere – I at least knew the basics. I took the quiz and got Slytherin. My friend Becky commented she was surprised since I am so much like Hermione. “Explain.” I asked. She replied “Hermione and you have a lot in common. You both study very hard. You both hang around with more boys than girls, but you don’t want people to forget you’re a girl. She is really loyal to her friends and she will stand up for what she believes in.” I smiled. This is certainly part of how I see myself. So the hat quiz was wrong since I am clearly Hermione who belonged to the house of Gryffindor.

Later that night I talk to my daughter and tell her Becky said I am like Hermione. My daughters reply was “A bossy know-it-all?” .. .. .. well that was certainly NOT the description Becky gave. Admittedly I am also a bossy know-it-all, but I had to get to the bottom of this Hermione thing.

Deathly Hallows had been released less than 2 full days when I Wiki’d Hermione. I know, I know, in hindsight that was a rather bad place to go. Still, most people on the net (read: except for a few douchebags) were kind enough to post spoiler alerts. I somehow forgot how some people are not so kind. So I dove into the article in Wikipedia about Hermione. I found out EVERYTHING about her. Even the end of the 7^th book.

I didn’t realize at the time that I had read the ending. I skipped on over to the Houses section. By definition I was clearly Slytherin. I had some traits of the other houses, but when it came to it – I was Slytherin. I went back to the Hermione article and clicked the link to Lupin, who had caught my eye earlier. I nearly fell in love with him there on the spot. It was there that I realized I had read the ending. I clicked out of the browser fast.

That weekend I went to my sisters. She had the first few books and I borrowed them. I knew how the story ended, now I needed to know how they go to the ending. I read the two she loaned me but couldn’t wait to borrow the rest so I bought them. I read them like a starving person. I was so hooked.

The fandom came hard and fast for me. It was like I had been a fan forever. The complex worlds, the deep characters – it was just so amazing. I, like the rest of the world, wanted to go to Hogwarts.

Then I began to really explore more of the fandom by attending the Yule Ball at Dragon*con. I met some wonderful people there. People I still look forward to seeing every year.

I met people in another online place I went to. Some of those wonderful witches are still my friends to this day. I don’t know them in the flesh, but online. Still, online friendships can be very intense and very fulfilling. I love those girls.

Something about Harry Potter is that I get to indulge fully into the fandom. Like my Star Wars obsession, there are conventions, music, people playing dress up.. even other people who will do bad fake European accents with me when we are in costume.

I have attended midnight opening premieres in my tiny town with a very large group of friends on more than one occasion. For the Half Blood Prince premiere I even made the front page (Slytherin takes down a Ravenclaw!) of the newspaper. We take two rows of seats when we fill the theater. My Harry Potter peeps are amazing.

I tell my children that some day they can tell their children how they saw Harry Potter on the big screen at premiere openings. It’s an experience their children will not have (unless we some day get prequels! But that’s another blog.) I feel blessed to have seen Star Wars when it originally came, and now Harry Potter. I may have missed some things along the way (book release parties, the first few movies) but overall I still got to participate in this fandom. It is something I just hold so dear.

As a writer with a little world in my head, I sometimes try to imagine how emotionally overwhelming it is for Lady Rowling. The moments of seeing your characters come to life, seeing your world in full color on a screen 30 feet high, it must be the most amazing feeling in the world. I think I would cry of happiness all the time. But more so, one of my goals as a writer is to have other people fall in love with my characters as much as I love them. I want people to cry when they do, laugh when they do.. and Jo has achieved that. We love Harry and Hermione and Ron and Neville and Remus just as much as she does. That is what it’s all about. The money must be nice, but that isn’t all there is to it. It is so much more. She brought us a world that we love so passionately. Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, The Burrow, Malfoy Manor, all of those things are a gift to us. It is a gift that nobody can ever take away. It is a gift that will never get lost, never get chewed up by the puppies, never be stolen by an ex who “forgot” to return it. It is ours. Harry and his world will forever remain. 

About my hearing issues..

After all these decades I have answers. So dear Dragon*con friends (and other friends who deal with me in places of non-quiet)- maybe you will forgive me when you have to repeat yourselves 30 times.

I have to admit, I didn't know other people didn't have the problems I have. I thought a lot of my "problems" were normal. I only recently found out that other people don't hear the way I do. How surprising for me! But now that I know what's wrong, I know I can work actively to try and create situations where my issues can be overcome and handled properly. My hopes are that this will create a better hearing life for me. My doctor told me I am working too hard to communicate. I honestly thought everyone worked that hard. I just wanted a hearing aid. But it is far more than my physical ear that is the issue. Who knew. 


I drew a little comic to try and explain the problem. It is much more complicated than I can explain, but it should help give you the general idea. Read the description and then read the comic - it makes more sense in that order.